Clinical impacts of an integrated electronic health record-based smoking cessation intervention during hospitalisation

Objective: To assess the effects of an electronic health record (EHR) intervention that prompts the clinician to prescribe nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) at hospital admission and discharge in a large integrated health system.

Design: Retrospective cohort study using interrupted time series (ITS) analysis leveraging EHR data generated before and after implementation of the 2015 EHR-based intervention.

Setting: Kaiser Permanente Northern California, a large integrated health system with 4.2 million members.

Participants: Current smokers aged ≥18 hospitalised for any reason.

Exposure: EHR-based clinical decision supports that prompted the clinician to order NRT on hospital admission (implemented February 2015) and discharge (implemented September 2015).

Main outcomes and measures: Primary outcomes included the monthly percentage of admitted smokers with NRT orders during admission and at discharge. A secondary outcome assessed patient quit rates within 30 days of hospital discharge as reported during discharge follow-up outpatient visits.

Results: The percentage of admissions with NRT orders increased from 29.9% in the year preceding the intervention to 78.1% in the year following (41.8% change, 95% CI 38.6% to 44.9%) after implementation of the admission hard-stop intervention compared with the baseline trend (ITS estimate). The percentage of discharges with NRT orders increased acutely at the time of both interventions (admission intervention ITS estimate 15.5%, 95% CI 11% to 20%; discharge intervention ITS estimate 13.4%, 95% CI 9.1% to 17.7%). Following the implementation of the discharge intervention, there was a small increase in patient-reported quit rates (ITS estimate 5.0%, 95% CI 2.2% to 7.8%).

Conclusions: An EHR-based clinical decision-making support embedded into admission and discharge documentation was associated with an increase in NRT prescriptions and improvement in quit rates. Similar systemic EHR interventions can help improve smoking cessation efforts after hospitalisation.